


Necessary Things

by tzzzz



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:04:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzzzz/pseuds/tzzzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Dave know it's wrong, but they can't seem to help themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Necessary Things

**Author's Note:**

> A quick John/Dave fic for sga_kinkmeme. The prompt was "Dave/John, incest. They both know it's wrong, but justify it because they're only half-brothers."

"I knew you'd be back," Dave says the second John steps inside the house. It feels as old and huge and empty as it did when they were children, hiding in a forest of fur and leather in the coatroom during their parent's parties.

"Yeah?" John is doubtful. He had managed to leave for almost ten years the last time he walked away.

"Did you believe that I thought you were only here for the money?" Dave asks, faux-innocent. He's always liked to pull John's chain. The sick bastard knows that its anger that will pull John back from the detachment he's always threatened to sink into.

"I'm not your mother," John replies.

"You certainly aren't," Dave sneers, stepping right up to John in his perfectly-pressed $5,000 suit. He looks like a real man now. John can't believe he ever accepted the substitute - skinny Dave trying to walk in their father's shoes, fucking John on their father's desk while he was on business in Hong Kong. John remembers looking out the floor to ceiling windows of the corporate office, staring strait into the vast blue sky and realizing that it wasn't enough. No matter how wild or rebellious, it wasn't flying.

John remembers the day Cheryl Sheppard finally caught them, the disgusted, angry, pole-axed look on her face soon displaced by greed. It was the leverage she needed to make John go away and leave her son the rightful heir to the Sheppard empire. John wonders if she ever stopped to think how bad a mother she must have been to the both of them for them to end up the way they are. On the day of his court martial, she'd called to let John know that the black mark, his whole military career, was the penance he deserved for his sin. Even after all those years, the poor woman hadn't thought to wonder if it was her son who started it.

Dave reaches out, a shark in the water, as always, pushing down on the dark bruise forming around John's neck and yanking his older brother up against him for a kiss so intense that afterwards John has to check to see if his lip is bleeding. In some deep recess of his mind, John knows that they do this because there's something wrong with them, but that part is overwhelmed by how good this feels, how right. It feels like coming in from the numbing cold. It feels like coming home.

"I've missed you, John," Dave says, grinning. "Why did you leave me?"

John wants to point out the blackmail, his military career, the fact that Dave was forced to shun John for their father's sake, the fact that up until recently Dave had been married.

"National security," John points out. It's the fate of the planet in his hands, but it seems weak in the face of Dave's obvious disappointment. John hates making his brother sad. That's why it was better not to see him at all for those long years.

"But I needed you," Dave pouts. He looks young again - the scared child who hid his face against John's chest when his mother was drunk and screaming at them both, or the boy who needed John to beat up his classmates for him at boarding school. John knows that Dave is an adult, now. In fact, he's a powerful man who can take care of himself, but there are some habits that are too difficult to unlearn.

"What if I needed you too?" John expected that Dave would come for his court martial - whisk him away from a life that never felt like his to begin with.

"You never needed me, John." Dave sounds honestly resentful now, making John wonder if his earlier statements were just empty manipulation.

John collapses against his brother now, holding him tight, listening to the powerful beat of his heart running through John's old tired bones. He thinks about screaming when his life was being drained out of him, the adrenaline rush of running through a city that depends on him and his very blood, of wondering if he'd ever see his brother, the one person he's ever truly loved, ever again. It tears a single sob from him - he clamps down his control soon after, but he allows himself that one weakness in front of the only person in two galaxies that he trusts to see him vulnerable. They are two sides of the same coin, one soul inhabiting two bodies, and nobody will ever be closer, no matter how much they try to reach out for girlfriends or wives or lovers, they will always come back to this. John sees that now.

"Shh," Dave croons. "It's okay," he whispers as he plies John's lips with delicate kisses. "I'm here. I'll always be here." After that, it's easy to fall together, just like old times, kissing familiar lips, looking at eyes he's seen in the mirror a hundred times as he looks at himself and imagines that its Dave looking back.

"You'll never be a disappointment to me, John," Dave says. "I don't care what you've done. I'll always love you."

John is hungry for it now, so desperate that he nearly rips the fly on Dave's expensive pants in and effort to suck him into his mouth. He loves the feeling of Dave's smooth, strong fingers in his hair, encouraging him rather than forcing him and he whimpers when Dave finally yanks him off his feet and drags him down a familiar long hallway, through the kitchen and up the back staircase to their old playroom, now decorated in pink to accomodate Dave's daughters' things. John pulls Dave down by the tie onto the soft white carpet, kissing him until both their lips are swollen. They rut up against each other, like their first time in this very same room, until they are both coming all over Dave's suit.

Afterwards, when they curl up together in front of the small child-height window that overlooks the main drive, hands tangled together and sweat drying cool on their overheated bodies, Dave asks, "Do you think he knew? About us?"

John shrugs. He hadn't wasted much thought on their father in recent years, until he got the news, of course.

"I hope he didn't," Dave says, more to himself than to John. A shiver runs up John's spine: it's the first hint Dave has ever given, in all these years, that he thinks what they're doing might be wrong.

"We're only half-brothers," John points out. It's been their constant refrain. "He's the one who decided to remarry."

"There's a place for you at the corporate office," Dave continues, changing the subject like he's running a board meeting. "I used to work more from home, before the divorce, but now I split my time between D.C. and New York, but I'm through here often enough. You can have the master bedroom, or your old room if you'd like. We converted the upstairs sitting room and the two rooms off of it into the children's wing, so your old room is still available. And your military service will come in handy now that we have a few defense contracts under our belt. I bet . . ."

"Dave," John interrupts. "I wasn't kidding when I said what I do is important. I'm not staying."

They don't look at each other. John doubts he's strong enough to look at the disappointment in his brother's eyes. After minutes of sitting in silence, Dave finally stands, pulling his clothes back into place and putting on the mask of the corporate mogul once again.

"I told you - you never needed me, John."

John wants to turn to his brother and explain about wormholes and aliens and other galaxies and the lives he's imperiled and the lives he's saved and why this isn't another betrayal, just another act in the long line of necessary things. He wants to tell his brother that he doesn't feel guilty about what they've always done and that he needs him more than he can say, but the words just won't come.

He sits, looking down the long driveway from a window meant for a child until the sun begins to set and he can see the first twinkle of stars on the horizon.


End file.
